[Wittrs] Re: Understanding Dualism
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 01:48:55 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "BruceD" <blroadies@...> wrote:
>
> Stuart:
> If you recall, its been years, I posted a Dennett review titled
> "Explaining Consciousness Away." In related Post you suggested that we
> were only a set of operations, brain events, no observer necessary to
> explain the operations. Then later you place consciousness at the end of
> a causal chain. That's how it happens for you.
>
> But before I say more. Please tell me whether this C which occurs
> causally, occurs in the brain and if so is the brain consciousness, is
> it aware that it is consciousness and where is the person who is
> thinking this theory.
>
Consciousness occurs in the brain (not the in big toe or the kidneys -- though
we may be conscious, as in "aware", of each depending on certain conditions).
The mind, in this sense, is in the brain although in a phenomenological sense
the world including the brain (both as idea and, if being observed via
appropriate instrumentation, is in the mind). But the latter sense is
irrelevant to the former insofar as we are interested in a scientific
perspective.
Is the brain conscious? Yes, of course, when it is. Is it "consciousness" (I
don't know if your choice of terms above reflected a typo or not)? No it isn't.
Not all brains are conscious and not all brains that are are always conscious.
Moreover, "being conscious" may designate a number of different things in which
case some may be applicable to brains while some may not. You ask if the brain
is aware that it is conscious and I would say yes and no. Insofar as the brain
and the person are the same then when the person thinks about being conscious
then the person's brain is aware. But as Dennett points out, much of what the
brain does happens well below any possible level of our awareness and,
moreover, the mere fact that we have access through introspection to our
thoughts and feeling doesn't imply that we have a privileged access such that
we know better in all cases what is going on. Merely because we introspect and
see in ourselves a conscious mind, doesn't mean there is some entity-like
consciousness that we are observing introspectively.
> > We might "detect C in some location"
>
> > if we are examining a brain of a a previously thought comatose person.
>
>
>
> Exactly where would we see C. What does it look like?
>
The brain processes associated with consciousness as discovered by researchers
like Dehaene.
>
>
> > We don't know how the baby "acquires" it or what that even means in
> any detail.
>
>
>
> That's an interesting way of putting it. Perhaps we don't know
> "how a baby acquires C" because the question makes no sense.
Why not? At what stage do we say a baby is aware of anything more than its own
body? At what stage is awareness organized and therefore recognizable to us? Of
course, if we want to say that consciousness is just awareness then in that
sense the baby is conscious from its first breath. But then so is an amoeba. Is
that all you mean by "consciousness" then? Do you want to settle on raw
awareness as the key criterion of consciousness? If so be careful because it
may well be possible to build machines, even at this stage, with at least the
level of awareness of an amoeba -- or a newborn infant.
> Does a person acquire C?
You are the one who asked the question about how consciousness is "acquired".
> Or do we simply attribute C to certain
> organisms.
As in Dennett's intentional stance then?
>Perhaps there is no empirical problem here at all. We've
> created a pseudo-empirical problem through conceptual confusion
>
>
The empirical problem is this:
How do brains accomplish what they accomplish; and
Can what brains accomplish be replicated on other platforms than brains?
What could be more empirical than such questions?
>
> > The issue is to what extent we can replicate that on other non-organic
> platforms.
>
>
>
> An if we did, so what?
So a lot, actually. However insofar as your question is a moral one, it is
irrelevant to my point. Insofar as it's a practical one, a whole lot of stuff
follows.
> How does that address the question of whether a
> physical account of brain can offer a account of mind?
>
> bruce
>
I think you're reversing the cart and horse here. The issue is whether a
physical account is sufficient. If it is, then artificial consciousness is
possible. If it isn't, then it may not be. If some form of dualism is true,
then it is a matter of souls or soul-like entities entering the universe from
somewhere or co-existing with the rest of the universe of physics or just
popping into existence.
SWM
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